The 8 best-dressed men of the week

Bar of the week: Clean Air Bar with Ketel One vodka

Every week, we scour the city to find the best bars our capital has to offer. Whether you're a cocktail kind of guy, or a man who enjoys a decent draft beer, there's a GQ-worthy drinking spot to suit every taste.

The 8 best-dressed men of the week

Bar of the week: Clean Air Bar with Ketel One vodka

Every week, we scour the city to find the best bars our capital has to offer. Whether you're a cocktail kind of guy, or a man who enjoys a decent draft beer, there's a GQ-worthy drinking spot to suit every taste.

Why Aston Martin’s fastest car is one of its best

Here's the thing about Aston Martins. On one hand, they're deeply stylish, gentlemanly things. Haptic surfaces, the soft hides of spoiled cows, carpets you can gather up by curling your toes - that sort of thing. But on the other, they have power. Lots and lots of power; an abundance that'll get you down the road at whatever speed you fancy. But what they're not is fast. Not in an Italian supercar, oh-God-make-it-stop sort of way. So selling an Aston on being the fastest ever seems a bit... discordant. Like selling a Breton jumper on being the stripiest. It's just not the point. Nevertheless, that's the manufacturer's strategy with the V12 Vantage S - the fastest ever normal road car it builds.

In its defence, the numbers are impressive. Top speed of 205mph, 0-62mph comes in 3.9 seconds and that's thanks to a 55bhp power boost over the standard V12 Vantage to a staggering 565bhp. Torque's up, too - a 27lb ft improvement to 457lb ft. To cope with the power, the six-speed stick-shift you'd find in the old Vantage has been swapped out for a Sportshift III seven-speed automated manual paddle-shift gearbox.

Advertisement

Then there's the software. Low-revs torque has risen by 52lb ft from an already enormous 324lb ft to 376, which gives you enough shove to dilate you and your favourite passenger's pupils whatever gear you find yourself in. A pleasant distraction from the missing clutch pedal.

So does it do fast? Absolutely, and in a pleasantly Aston Martiny sort of way. In an Audi R8 or Porsche 911 GTS acceleration feels like a wild, tearing hurry, but in the Vantage V12 S it's more like gravity - progressive and prodigious. The gaps between each upshift take a little longer than we'd like for a full-blow maximum-attack sports car, but this is an automated manual and can't be compared to the impeccable, fully automatic Porsche PDK or Audi S tronic systems. Still, it'll change cogs faster than a human can, and it's 25kgs lighter than a full manual. Every cloud.

Read next

10 Coolest new things this week: From Louis Vuitton’s first men’s fragrance to the Aston Martin submarine

The 10 coolest in tech, fashion, and cars

ByLottie Stanners

Tip it into a corner and all the chassis upgrades over the V12 Vantage come to life. It's got a ZF Servotronic steering system with a fast rack (that means you can turn the steering wheel a little amount for the front wheels to turn a lot) so you can be correct any mid-corner mistakes (or park in Mayfair) without channelling your inner Leonard Bernstein. Then there's the adaptive suspension. There's a menu of three different modes -

Normal, Sport, and Track. Normal will take care of all your pottering needs and soak up some - but not all - of Britain's corduroy tarmac, but click it into sport and it tenses into a properly focused thing.

It only makes sense to engage the latter or Track mode (slightly firmer than Sport) when you give it a proper drubbing, but frankly you'll need a track to really stretch its legs. That said, our thorough tests on several private B roads demonstrated supercar-troubling stability. Mercifully, it's also fitted it with ceramic disks that have the largest braking surface ever used on an Aston. And considering it's still a relatively weighty 1665kg car (and costs £138,000), we're extremely grateful.

Advertisement

So, in the V12 S Aston has created a supremely, distressingly fast car. One that could give a dedicated sports thing a run for its money. But, remarkably, while it might not represent the point you make about yourself by buying an Aston, it still very much is one. The seats feature more racey alcantara than cow, and carbon replaces chrome, but the design still makes people drop their shopping, and the engine's happy enough at low speeds for you to make sure they get a good look at it.

Then there's the fit and finish. None of buzzing metal or high-gloss surfaces has been lost in the pursuit of speed - the company simply added more power to justify their inclusion, stripping weight out of the oily bits. It remains a brute in a suit, but it's got chest hair you could comb into a parting. Much like one of the brand's biggest fans. Buy one immediately.